At a time when society is moving away from organised religion and attendance at places of worship is at an all time low, secular carols are becoming increasingly popular with artists such as Kathryn Jenkins bringing out albums with traditional carol tunes given new words with no religious connotations.

People like the festive spirit of Christmas and often enjoy the music but do not necessarily ascribe to the religious beliefs behind the lyrics so secular carols are a way of joining in the Christmas music without compromising ones beliefs or lack of belief. We do carols a disservice if we think they should only be religious and on a Christmas theme because of course, secular carols are not new – think of the lyrics of ‘Deck the Halls’, for example , and carols are not necessarily confined only to Christmas. There are Easter carols, for instance.

John Rutter’s publishers, Oxford University Press describe this secular carol as ‘a true celebration of all that we love about the festive season’.

This Carol was written for two American choral director friends in the USA Gene and Audrey Grier. Rutter has visited the USA often over the years. This carol was first published by OUP in 1985, is for SATB with piano or chamber orchestra comprising flute, oboe, harp and strings. There is also an OUP a cappella (ie unaccompanied) arrangement by Owain Park for SATTBB. However, we based this version on Rutter’s own piano arrangement, but here the flute is taking the melody line.

Various recordings of this carol exist, most notably on the John Rutter Christmas Album with his own Cambridge Singers and the City of London Sinfonia in turn taken from a previous album called Christmas Day in the Morning.